


when the book of life is read

by amosanguis



Series: author's fave [100]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Brain tumor, Dealing With Terminal Illness, Gen, M/M, POV Multiple, Season/Series 01, Terminal Illnesses, Title from a Country Song, mostly linear narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 09:48:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13074315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amosanguis/pseuds/amosanguis
Summary: Danny goes back to New Jersey to die.





	when the book of life is read

**Author's Note:**

> \--Title from the hymn "Book of Life" sung by Hank Williams.  
> \--I'm sure that there are a few medical inacccuracies that Google couldn't prevent. My apologies.

-z-

 

Danny goes back to New Jersey to die.

Danny goes back to New Jersey to die and doesn’t say anything to anyone.

 

-x-

 

“Brain cancer,” the doc says, doesn’t blink or stutter or hesitate, just lays everything out plain. “The tumor is in too deep; it’s inoperable.”

“How long?” Danny asks.

“Six months,” the doctor answers, “maybe eight.”

 

-

 

Danny sits and stares at the collection of pills on his table – one was for the migraines to come, another for the dizziness, another for the nausea, another to regulate his moods, another for—

Danny then blinks and shakes his head – sparing a brief thought to wonder if he’d be able to shake his head hard enough to dislodge the tumor until it slid out of his ears—

Danny then chases _that_ thought away with a scream and a fist through the wall. He screams again. And maybe a third time. Then he grabs the bottles and throws them into a bag along with a few clothes and floors it to the airport.

Before the plane takes off, Danny texts Gracie – he’ll miss her next birthday by a month – and says simply, _I_ _love you, monkey_ , before he turns the device off and drops it into the seat pouch in front of him, where he plans to forget it when it’s time to disembark.

And when Danny lands in LA, he buys the first little two-door truck off Craigslist he can find that looks like it’ll last until at least Virginia. Then he starts driving.

 

-x-

 

Danny goes back to New Jersey to die and as soon as he gets there, he heads straight to the roof of his old apartment building and takes in the sea of metal and concrete and glass all around him. He closes his eyes, listens to the sound of the traffic all around him – he feels the swell of it filling him, making him want to move to it.

Slowly, reluctantly, Danny opens his eyes.

He wonders what it’ll be like to close them for the last time, if he’ll know it when it happens. He thinks that he will. But, then again, Danny’s body is marked, scarred from more than a few close calls where he’d thought that time was the last time – all just to wake up again.

But this isn’t like that.

This is three different doctors, three different machines – all agreeing that Danny’s got six-maybe-eight months (four-maybe-six-and-a-half by the time Danny had seen everyone he could). No arguments. No ifs, ands, or buts. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200. Your appointment is set, sir, and there are no cancellations.

Danny turns away from Newark spread out before him and heads back downstairs, looking for the building’s manager – a widower name Khan who’d always taken care of Danny and had always been willing to watch Gracie whenever Danny had been suddenly called into work.

Gracie won’t understand, not for a long time. And maybe not even then. He just hopes that one day, she’ll forgive him for running.

 

-

 

Khan pulls Danny into a hug, his tears quickly dampening Danny’s shirt.

Then he’s pulling back, takes Danny’s face in his hands, says, “Danny, whatever you want, okay? Whatever you need, okay?”

Danny swallows hard and lets himself be pulled into another hug.

He’s leaving with a set of keys when he pauses in the door, turns back to Khan. “Some people may come looking for me—”

“Don’t worry,” Khan interrupts. “I will not even write your name down, no one will know.”

Danny smiles sadly at him. “Thank you,” he says, then he’s stepping out into the familiar halls.

 

-

 

Danny visits every little restaurant and food cart and store that he’s missed. The places that remember him greet him with open arms and wide smiles and never charge him a cent. He doesn’t tell them what brings him home and answers as many questions about Hawaii as he can bring himself to.

Three months pass quietly before Danny’s at his favorite pizza place, talking with the owner, an old friend named Anthony who’d gone to school with Danny’s parents, when he has a seizure.

It’s over quickly and Danny has to grab the cell phone from Anthony’s hand and end the call to 9-1-1 – not that it does any good, the ambulance is already screaming up to the building. He glares at the paramedics and tells them that he’s just fine and that they should be on their way.

The two EMTs share a glance, before one of them looks Danny in the eyes, says, “Sir, your nose is bleeding.”

Danny touches his fingers to his upper lip, just below his nose, and can feel immediately when his fingers come away wet with blood. He’s still looking at the blood when he says, “Look, I already know what’s wrong with me. Anthony,” Danny gestures to the owner, “didn’t. Doesn’t. Probably won’t.”

Anthony lets out a choked-off noise of anger that Danny pointedly ignores as he grabs a napkin from the table they had been sitting at, and tries to stem the flow of blood. One of the EMTs leaves the pizzeria and returns a few minutes later with a clipboard and a form he’s partially filling out.

“Sir, I need you to fill out this release,” the EMT says, “and then I need you to sign it.”

Danny doesn’t hesitate – flicking the pen over the paper with practiced ease, substituting fake information for the real so this document never pops up on Chin’s table.

When they’ve gone, Danny’s nose has stopped bleeding and he’s just stepping towards the door when Anthony’s hand around his arm stops him.

“We need to talk, right now,” he snaps. “Your ma—”

“—doesn’t need to know anything,” Danny interrupts, pulling himself free. He means for that to be the end, but then he’s continuing, and the words are spilling out of him before he can stop them. “No one needs to know anything. I think I’m allowed that. I think I’m allowed to determine how I spend _my_ last fucking days.”

Anthony stares, his mouth dropped open wide, his eyes filling with tears. “Danny,” he starts, but whatever he’s about to say next, Danny tunes him out – just turns on his heel and leaves.

 

-

 

It’s getting harder and harder to keep food down, to fight off the migraines.

On the good days (that were getting fewer and farther between), Khan helps him down to the park where Danny can bask in the sun, talking about Five-0 and Gracie and how much he loves them all, until either the migraines or the nausea force him back to the apartment building.

Khan is easing Danny into his bed when Danny asks, “You know what to do right? When it happens?”

Khan nods, “Yes, Danny.”

“Good,” Danny says, his voice softening. “Good.”

 

-

 

Danny wakes up to a blood-soaked pillow and no idea which way was up or down or even if his body was lying still as everything spun and whirled around him.

 

-

 

Danny puts a hand on the letters in front of him. He’d written them just after the migraines started getting worse and made it impossible for him to look at a screen for any length of time. Now, when he sees nana sitting on his couch, he knows it won’t be long.

It isn’t.

 

-x-

 

Khan knows as soon as he’s entered the apartment that Danny was gone. So, he steps back out and makes the requisite phone call to 9-1-1, then he takes a deep breath and starts making his way down the list.

He calls Danny’s parents and then his siblings.

(“When you get to Steve,” Danny had said as his fingers traced the name on the envelope, “be gentle with him. He’s going to be angry. He might not even come up here.”)

Khan’s thumb hovers over the green button that would dial the number he’s typed in. Instead, he exits the screen and pulls up another contact – his daughter – and asks if she could spare three days to come over from Brooklyn to watch over the building (he almost adds Danny, but Danny was gone; his parents would be taking over from where Khan had left off).

Then Khan is booking himself a plane ticket to Hawaii and grabbing a stack of letters.

 

-x-

 

It’s been six-and-a-half months. Six-and-a-half months of endless cycles of desperation and exhaustion broken only by false hope from dead-end leads. Six-and-a-half months when a short, older Indian man is ushered into the Five-0 control room.

“Can we help you?” Chin asks.

The older man smiles softly at them, his eyes seeming to fill with tears.

“Forgive me,” he says. “It’s just that I have heard so much about all of you, I feel as if I know you.” Abruptly he lowers his gaze, then he’s looking back up and he’s searching until his eyes finally land on Steve. “My name is Khan, you must be Commander McGarrett,” he says before he reaches into a small bag hanging loosely from his wrist and pulls out an envelope with _Steve_ written across it in Danny’s slightly slanted, all-caps handwriting.

And Steve feels like the world has completely given way from beneath his feet, gets so lost in the sounds of his rapid breathing and the blood roaring in his ears that he almost doesn’t hear what Khan says next.

Khan moves to stand in front of Chin, says, “Mr. Kelly.” Then to Kono, “Ms. Kalakaua.”

“What the fuck is this?” Steve demands, his voice low and calm, anger beginning to burn in his chest. “If this is some kind of joke—”

“Danny said that you’d be angry,” Khan says, smoothly cutting off Steve’s threat. With a small gesture, Khan motions to the letters in their hands. “I was supposed to call you and tell you what had happened, then give these to you at the funeral.”

“ _Funeral_?” Chin snaps.

“A tumor,” Khan says, tears welling up in his eyes again as he met everyone’s gaze straight on, “deep in Danny’s brain where no surgeon could reach. He came home to die, and he didn’t want any of you to see it. Please,” Khan gestures at the letters again, “please, read.”

“Danny’s—” Kono starts, still staring at Khan until she’s ripping open her letter, then the back of her hand is flying to her mouth and she slips to her knees.

Steve looks away – _six-and-a-half months_ – and opens his own letter.

 

_I’m sorry. Steve. I’m sorry._

 

Steve backs up until he hits a wall and then he slides down.

 

_It had to end this way._

_If I had stayed, if I had been looking at you, I would never have been able to leave. There wouldn’t have been anything peaceful about it. We would have looked and looked and looked for a cure that didn’t exist – we would have made ourselves sick with it._

_I write these letters four months after leaving Hawaii, leaving you, leaving us. I’ll always wonder what could have been and I almost told you before I left, but a dying man’s confession would hardly have been worth much._

Steve slams his head backwards against the wall, feels a scream building in his chest and tears rolling hot and fast down his cheeks – six-and-a-half months had been a long time for him to come up with the perfect declaration of his love for Danny. He’d been hoping it’d come on the heels of rescuing Danny from whoever had been dumb enough to take him, but now—

Steve glares at the letter, forces himself to finish it.

_Whatever anger you feel towards me, fine, feel it. I’m sure you’ll be kicking my casket as soon as you’re done reading this. But leave Khan out of it. He’s a good man. Gave me an apartment to die in and isn’t charging me a cent for it._

_Take care of yourself, Steven. Before you even think about taking care of anyone else, take care of yourself._

_Yes, you can keep the car (assuming you haven’t blown it up yet)._

_You’ll be fine, Steve._

 

Steve’s hands curl into fists around the letter as he puts them to his forehead.

 _You’ll be fine, Steve_.

Steve is _not_ fine – he’s the exact opposite of _fine_ and the man Khan is standing quietly near the door, wiping away his own tears. When he notices Steve looking, Khan flashes him a weary smile, says, “I have two more letters to deliver. Could you perhaps tell me where I could find Rachel and Gracie?”

 

-x-

 

Rachel opens her door and sees Steve with a man she recognizes, and she _knows_ , feels the tears she didn’t think she had left running down her cheeks as Khan hands her two envelopes; one for her, one for Gracie.

 

-x-

 

Danny goes back to New Jersey to die.

 

-

 

“Why don’t you call them?” Khan asks, gesturing to the picture of the Five-0 he’s printed off from some news article.

 

-

 

Khan watches as they fold the flag and present it to Danny’s ma.

 

-

 

“Sometimes I want to,” Danny says, taking a deep breath and running a shaking hand through his hair.

Then he tells Khan about how, sometimes, there’s nothing more he wants than to hear Steve say something stupid in a language he doesn’t know; or ask Chin how he lives with the weight of a secret so big it feels as if he were being crushed; and how sometimes he wants to call Kono and make her swear that she’s not going to roll over for anyone, that she’ll always give as good as she gets, and she’ll teach Gracie how to do the same.

“But I can’t,” Danny says, looking at Khan with bright, red-rimmed eyes. “It’s selfish, but I want to be remembered in a very specific way – when I was strong and still fighting. Before I became _this_.” Danny gestures to his thinning body, to the waste bags attached to him.

“Danny,” Khan says, falling to his knees at Danny’s side as he takes Danny’s hands in his. “There is no shame in _this_ —," Khan mimics Danny’s earlier hand motion, “—you’re _sick_. It’s _okay_. Please—”

“I can’t,” Danny says, voice cracking even as he leans into Khan. His shoulders shake. “ _I can’t_.”

 

-

 

Danny’s casket is lowered into the ground as twenty-one shots scare the crows from the trees and bagpipes echo amongst the tombstones.

Khan isn’t welcomed at the front of the crowd – he was the one who had hidden Danny, who had let him die on his own ( _terms_ , Khan thinks to himself, _I let him die on his own terms_ ) – so he stands in the back, barely able to hear the priest.

He only knows it’s over when the crowd around him begins to disperse; no one looks at him.

 

-

 

Danny’s breaths are rapid, shallow, and Khan kneels at the foot of his bed and he prays.

 

-

 

Khan is just getting to his car when he notices the three figures, in police and naval dress uniforms.

Steve McGarrett smiles softly at Khan, says, “Would you like to get some coffee? It’s on me.”

Kono snorts and looks away, mumbles something like, “Of course it is, boss, Danny’s not here to pick up your tab.”

Khan smiles at her as Steve half turns towards her to simply raise an eyebrow and glare half-heartedly. Then Steve is turning back to Khan. “Please,” he says. “A cup of coffee.”

Khan smiles at Steve, says, “Yes. Perhaps we can swap stories?”

Steve smiles right back, says, “I’d like that.”

 

 -

 

“When you get to Steve,” Danny says as his fingers trace the name on the envelope, “be gentle with him. He’s going to be angry. He might not even come up here.”

“He will,” Khan says, “of course, he will.”

“ _If_ he does,” Danny says, leaning deep into the cushions of his recliner, “be gentle with him.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Khan says, putting a hand over Danny’s.

Danny’s head lolls to the side, the sun filtering in through the curtains at just the right angle and highlighting the blond in Danny’s hair and scruff and eyelashes, and in that moment, they both forget about the time limit they’re fighting against.

 

-

 

Khan looks down at his long-empty coffee cup and says, “And that’s why Danny came to New Jersey to die.”

 

-z-

 

End.


End file.
